The write-20-minutes-a-day-for-365-days-come-hell-or-high-water challenge

A little gift came early for us here at Write Despite, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce it.

Karen is the first-place winner of an anthology released today, Triumph: Stories of Victories Great and Small. The ten short stories and essays in this collection deliver finely crafted, authentic accounts of courage, inspiration, and achievements, and I’m proud to have been one of the judges who helped select them (although I had no hand in choosing the actual winners).

If you’re still looking for a gift for that reader on your list (maybe it’s you!), or just know someone in need of encouragement, a good laugh, or even a well-earned cry, check it out. There’s truly something in here for everyone.

Thanksgiving approaches. Like most of you, we’re looking back on what we’re grateful for this year. Too many things to list, of course, but here are some of the best writerlytips we’ve collected in 2018.

—From Cathy:

At a discussion at George Mason University’s Fall for the Book event this year, I was able to hear Elizabeth Strout speak about her incredible body of work, Olive Kitteridge and My Name is Lucy Barton, in particular, with mentions of her latest, Anything Is Possible as well. She admitted she doesn’t write any of her books sequentially. Imagine! She writes out scenes, prints them, then lays them out on this big table in her house and literally pieces them together like large, literary a puzzle. How freeing, to break out of the whole outline mode, or even just out of the guideline in your head, and simply write freeform that way. When I’m feeling stuck, I think this would be a great way to keep things moving forward, although I know it would likely have its drawbacks for me too:
* I would no doubt wind up with an unstructured mess.
* Someone would come along and turn a fan on, or spill a drink on all my papers.
* My husband would stop by, pick something up and read it, then feel the need to critique. On the spot. While I’m watching Riverdale!

These little gems from author Richard Bausch, my former writing professor and advisor:

When you feel dry, mime someone. Write in someone else’s voice; write Faulkner for a while, or Cheever, or Katherine Ann Porter, or anyone, to get the thing on paper. Then go through and take out the SOUND of those other voices, and be true to the event, or the occasion, and clear about it whatever it is, and what’s left is you. You learned by imitating; there’s no reason you can’t warm to it that way, too.

Character is Fate. Character is action. Character is nature. Character is nurture. Character is the sound of a voice, a gesture, the color of the eyes, the hair, the texture of the skin. It is a matter of imagining, even when you are using a model, and it involves the marvelous reasonableness of the world’s fictional people—that is, we understand Jay Gatsby’s behavior, we are privy to his “romantic readiness” and we have full knowledge of what he felt standing at the end of his dock, his fantastic mansion behind him in the night, while he gazed, arms outstretched, across the sound, at Daisy’s green light. We know these people, therefore, better than we ever really know anyone in life.

3) This, from the latest issue of Writer’s Digest, on key book publishing paths. I love, love visual charts like this. They make everything so much clearer:

Here is some great writing advice I’ve received, simple but so important:

Watch those verbs! If you’re using adverb to modify your verb, you might not be using the right verb. Is there a better, more accurate action word for what you’re trying to convey?

Choose your readers carefully. When you’ve got a work in progress, be careful whose criticism you solicit. Not all editors are equal for all works. You need someone who “gets” your work, and who, even more importantly, wants to enhance what YOU’VE done, not do it over according to their own visions or tastes. Good editing makes your work better. Bad editing just confuses you.

Write for yourself. It can’t be stated enough. Choose subjects and characters that compel and captivate you. It’s the only way you’ll be able to bring them to life and make readers care about them.

Not everyone is going to like your work. Do you like everything you read? No, of course not. Get over it.

When it comes to words, simple is almost always better.

When it comes to length, shorter is almost always better. (There are of course exceptions.)

What advice are YOU grateful for? Whatever it is, embrace it, and pass it along.

As we head into glorious autumn–my favorite season–there’s no shortage of great fiction to read. Cathy and I have been focusing on a couple of contemporary authors lately.

Cathy just finished these two by Elizabeth Strout, both of which she loved…

…while I just finished Lydia Millet’s “Sweet Lamb of Heaven” (blew me away) and I’m now enjoying the stories in “Fight No More.” She’s just amazing.

Share the titles that you’re enjoying this fall? We always love to hear what our friends are reading.

And if you’re in the Fairfax, Virginia, area Oct. 10 to 13, check out the Fall for the Book Festival at George Mason University. There’s a great lineup of speakers, including Elizabeth Strout, and lots workshops and discussion panels. Keep an eye out for Cathy!

Novelist Michelle Richmond is living the expat dream in Paris, where she has temporarily relocated with her husband and son. It’s a long way from Northern California to Paris, France, and Michelle is candidly–and humorously–sharing her daily trials and triumphs. You can follow her exploits in a “beautiful but challenging city” on her new blog, The Reluctant Parisian.

Michelle’s indie press, Fiction Attic Press, published my debut novel in 2014, and she remains a source of support and inspiration. I’m loving her post-a-day on Instagram.

Drum roll, please….. Our friend and contributor Vanessa Hua is celebrating a big one today: the publication of her debut novel, A River of Stars. Cathy and I offer our congratulations along with a super big high-five.

Vanessa took a break in her busy promotion schedule to share a little about the creative inspiration for her novel–turns out that pregnancy is a great time for literary ideas to incubate!

From Vanessa:

While living in Southern California and pregnant with my twin sons, I began hearing about maternity hotels getting busted. What’s a maternity hotel? There’s an underground industry to house Chinese women coming to the U.S. to give birth, so that their children will receive U.S. citizenship. Neighbors were asking why there were so many pregnant Chinese women coming and going into suburban homes. It sounded like a brothel in reverse! What was it like, I wondered, to be so far from home and family at one of the most vulnerable times in your life?

When I was pregnant, I found that people treated me very generously, very kindly—offering me a place at the front of the line, or giving up their seat. They asked me when I was due, if I was having a boy or girl, and shared stories about their families. But when you have a dozen pregnant women under one roof, who gets the most sympathy and good wishes, who is the Queen Bee? It seemed like a situation ripe for drama—and ripe for comedy.

As I enter the final days before Pub Day, my brain feels so tired it feels cross-eyed inside my head! But I’m grateful for all the support and encouragement from family and friends, my publisher, agents, and editor, and am looking forward to sharing my book with the world.

Writing during these high days of summer can be a tough proposition. Who wants to write when sunny skies, sandy beaches, and watermelon beckon? Luckily for us, our friend Amy Sue Nathan at Women’s Fiction Writers launched the 31 Days of Inspiration series this month.

Amy will be posting a bit of inspiration every day. As she puts, “I’m talking about what motivates me to write or nudges me to polish a scene or edges me closer to a good idea ON THAT PARTICULAR DAY.”

Sounds good to us! Amy’s new book deal was announced in Publisher’s Marketplace. We’re looking forward to her novel, “The Last Bathing Beauty.”

A new season brings a new lineup of writing contests. We’d like to bring one to the attention of aspiring, and established, writers, because it’s being judged by none other than my Write Despite co-host Cathy Cruise.

Possibilities Publishing Company’s2018 Anthology Contest is looking for stories–both fiction and nonfiction–that deal with the theme of triumph.In the publisher’s words, they’re seeking “those moments of triumph, of victory, of doing the things that seemed un-doable. It can be the types of triumphs that everyone relates to, or something that only mattered to one person. Victories that are earth shattering or just day brightening. We want them all.”

Possibilities is the press that published Cathy’s book, and we all saw what a super nice job they did. They really crank the publicity machine for their authors. Just last week, Cathy found out her book has been named a finalist in the 2018 Indie Book Awards.

Cathy, and her co-judge Jennifer Crawford, will do a bang-up job, and they’re actively seeking submissions! So, get yours in pronto. Submission deadline is July 15.

Now, if you’re not fortunate enough at the moment to be telling stories of victory, there are plenty of other, diverse contests out there. Here’s just a small sample. Good luck!

Golden Walkman Magazine Contest
Entry fee: $10
Deadline: July 31, 2018
Winning manuscript published solely as an audiobook, and awarded a sum of money (to be determined by the success of the contest).
Submit no more than 30 pages of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, or hybrid.https://www.goldwalkmag.com/audiochapbook-contest.html

Sequestrum New Writer Awards
Entry fee: $15
Deadline: October 15, 2018
$200 first prize, and other lesser prizes
Open to fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from new and emerging writers.http://www.sequestrum.org/contests

Panelists gave attendees all the tools they need to create a brand, give great interviews, effectively launch a book, and market themselves on social media. It even featured a media lounge where authors could take head shots with a professional photographer and create a video focusing on themselves and their work.

Oh, and my favorite part? The Instagram Photo Booth that offered up a professional light box and a supply of backgrounds and props so you could take social media pictures of your book. As you can see, I had some fun with this one.

Why has no one come up with these grand ideas before?

Well, maybe they have, but not that I’ve heard of.

There were also a couple of sessions on getting published—tips on self-publishing, and advice from independent publishers on what they look for when considering a manuscript.

Just for fun, the Improv Imps led a group of introverted writers through an interactive workshop to help them loosen up in front of an audience.

And check this out: Penguin Bean Designs. Oh man, I love this company. They will reproduce, even create, pretty much any design you like on a t-shirt, hoodie, tote bag, wine sack, tea towel, pillowcase, you name it. I’m getting my book cover reproduced on a tote bag for a mere $25 (based on author Lindsay Barry’s cool tote here).

All of it took place at the gorgeous Clark House in Falls Church, Virginia, and included a pancake breakfast, lunch, two snacks (we’re talking cookies fresh from the oven, you guys), and a “sip and swap” wine and cheese closeout reception where attendees could mingle and trade books.

Next year’s conference is sure to be bigger, better, and even more innovative. Keep an eye out for it by following Possibilities Publishing online. Until then, here are the best tips and quotes I collected while I was there:

On launching your book:

Create a book launch team. Strive to recruit at least 100 people who will support you in your launch by reading, reviewing, and promoting your book. This can take as little as 5 or 10 minutes a week, and in return they get advance copies of your book, return reviews for their book, etc. And the results? Session presenter Jen Hemphil, author of Her Money Matters, saw 1863 copies of her book downloaded and sold in her first month (compared to about 200 for most self-pubbed books.)

On branding:

Why do we connect with a brand? Brand strategist Rebecca Gunter says it’s largely trust, quality, an inviting feel. Why do we not connect? It doesn’t align with our values, it feels yucky or false. Branding is all about feelings. How do you want readers to feel when they see your brand?

On marketing:

Author and holistic healer Laura Di Franco suggests you write down five reasons you don’t promote your book. Then ask, if there were no one on earth to disappoint, how would you promote it? Give five endings to the statement “My story matters because ______.”

If you do nothing else, create a signature with your book info for use on Amazon, so that when you review things, others will see your book title pop up. (Well, duh. Why am I not doing this?)

On social media:

Jennifer Crawford is owner of Social Media Rescue and Write On Social, which cater specifically to the needs of indie authors. She coached us on how to use Facebook Live as a marketing tool to reach existing fans faster and interact with readers in real time. Nifty tip: Three times more people are watching Facebook Live videos and those that aren’t live.

Use Instagram Live too. These videos last only 24 hours and are great for time-sensitive promotions, sneak peaks, and book “secrets.” And since few people are using this feature for now, it’s a less crowded area that gives you tons of room to be creative with your author brand and narrative. Instagram users in general tend to be highly engaged!

Check out these other presenters and sponsors from the Possibilities Publishing Conference!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope 2018 finds you well-rested and looking forward to an exciting and productive year.

And now a belated Christmas gift: My publisher extraordinaire, Meredith Maslich, recently sat down for a Q&A with Write Despite. Here she offers up some great insights into indie publishing, info on navigating submissions and rejections, and news about all her company has to offer.

I am, at my core, an entrepreneur, and right before I started Possibilities Publishing, I was working at a desk job, recovering from burnout from the previous company I’d started and run for seven years. Sitting at a desk, working for someone else is kind of soul crushing for an entrepreneur, so I was trying to figure out what my next move would be. Around this time my dad asked me to help him write and self-publish a book based on his career as a sales trainer. I found I enjoyed the work immensely and also started to see that publishing could be a good home for an entrepreneur—there was a lot of structure, a lot of information on best practices, but there was also infinite opportunity for innovation and creativity. As I was finishing my dad’s book, another family member mentioned that he’d already finished a book but needed help publishing and marketing it, so I volunteered to help him as well. Working on this second book gave me more opportunity to poke around in the publishing world, and I became even more intrigued, but I was still a little hesitant. Running your own company can be hugely exhausting and stressful and I wasn’t completely sure I was ready to dive back into that.

A few weeks later a friend posted on Facebook that she was looking for a publisher to take on the digital rights of a book she’d published in paperback, and a mutual friend commented on her post that I’d just started a publishing company and I could do it. That little (public) nudge from my friend was exactly what I needed. I contacted the original poster and we started making plans, and everything else has just flowed naturally from that moment.

What makes Possibilities Publishing different from other publishing houses?

We’re a small, independent publishing house, and we have no interest or aspirations to be like the big, traditional publishing houses. Often small publishers try to mimic the “big guys” on a smaller scale, but that doesn’t make sense for me. Habits, practices, and policies of the big traditional publishers are often based on inputs that don’t apply to us—much bigger marketing budgets, bigger staff, and universal name recognition and legitimacy, for example. But at the same time, many of their practices are also based on old, inflexible ways of thinking about publishing, writing, and marketing and I don’t want to get caught up in any of those.

We try to always start from a place of “yes”—from a place of seeing endless possibilities, which means always innovating, always asking why or why not? We love it when an author says “I’ve never seen anyone do this, but what if we tried X?”

We also see our relationship with our authors as a partnership where we each play different roles to help us both achieve our goals of selling books. Our primary role in the partnership is to bring experience, knowledge, and resources to the table, so that when the author brings us a creative marketing idea we can look at what we already know, or provide some context and framework for making decisions. So that, while we’re starting from place of yes, it’s a reasoned yes, or a “Yes, as long as xyz things are set up” to increase likelihood of success.

What are you looking for in a manuscript?

We look for really good writing and really good storytelling. Even in our nonfiction, we want books that flow, and see language as a tool, and thus are pleasing to read. We love novels that are engrossing, that take us to other time periods or just totally put us inside someone else’s life.

But we also look at the author when evaluating a manuscript. We look at whether they have an existing audience, if they seem comfortable with social media, and if they seem like they honestly want to work with a small, nontraditional publisher like us, or if they’ve just come to us because they think they have a better shot getting published by a small indie publisher. We’ve found that the spirit and personality of the author can have as much impact on success as the quality or content of the book itself.

What makes you reject a book?

The most common reason we reject manuscripts is that they have come to us too soon. The story isn’t fully fleshed out, so the arc falls flat, or the characters are one-dimensional, things that working with a professional editor or even a strong writer’s group could catch. The next most common reason is that it’s in a genre we don’t feel we can work with, like science fiction or a very niche sub-genre like “experimental fantasy realism” (that’s an actual phrase someone used to describe a submission). I’ve found that we do much better when I publish books I like to read, because I intuitively understand how to connect with the audiences.

What advice do you have for writers just breaking into publishing?

First, think carefully about what path to publishing is best for you. A lot of writers automatically start with trying to get published by one of the big traditional publishers, but that’s not the only, or best, path for many writers anymore. Many writers are a really good fit for self-publishing or working with indie publishers and I hate to see writers dismiss those options or see them as consolation options when all else fails. The best recipe for success as a published author is to find the path to publishing that works best for YOU, whatever that is.

Second, when deciding to approach a publisher or submit your manuscript, carefully read their website, look at other books they’ve published, look at their relationships with their authors, and be honest with yourself about whether or not it feels like you’d be a good fit with that publisher. And third, make sure you are following whatever submission guidelines they provide, especially with smaller publishers like myself. I’ve designed our submission process to be the most efficient process for us, and to gather important initial information about authors and their work. When authors try to sidestep that process, whether on purpose or because they didn’t see the submission instructions, it tells me a lot about them, and not usually positive things. We like creative authors who think outside the box, but we also need authors who, when necessary, can follow systems and directions, and be a bit inside the box.

Can you tell us about your new imprints—Thumbkin Prints, and Eaton Press?

I’m really excited about these new imprints because they let us build on what we’ve learned and have already built, while continuing to learn new things and take on new challenges. Thumbkin Prints is our new children’s imprint, geared toward readers up to age 13. This past November we released our first two titles—one for early readers (Journey to Constellation Station by Lindsay Barry) and one for the 12-13 age range (Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters by Christa Avampato). Both have done really well and it’s been exciting to see the ways in which this market is different from the adult market, but also the ways in which it overlaps. I’m really optimistic about the future of this imprint and looking forward to continuing to build it.

Eaton Press is our new self-publishing imprint, and we started it in large part as a response to feeling bad for all the authors we weren’t able to work with, either because they were a better fit for a self-publishing model, or simply because Possibilities Publishing was at capacity (we only publish three to four titles a year). So Eaton Press allows authors to access the expertise and experience of everyone who works with Possibilities Publishing, but on their own terms. We can hook them up with editors, or cover designers, or we can help them with every element of writing and publishing start to finish. We’ve ended up working with a lot of business professionals who want to publish books as tools to advance their careers or get more speaking engagements. It’s been a wonderful experience, and so different than what we do through Possibilities Publishing that it’s been really invigorating and rewarding.

You’re having your first Possibilities Conference on April 7, 2018. What will it be like?

I’m beyond excited to see The Possibilities Conference: Transforming Writers into Authors come to life. It’s the result of almost five years of working with a huge variety of authors with varying levels of experience, introvertedness, and enthusiasm, and seeing them all stumble at similar points in the process of transitioning from being a writer (being on your own writing your book) to being an author (publishing and marketing that book). After delivering some short workshops on the topic and getting a hugely positive response from attendees, I began putting together a full-day conference made up of workshops, networking, and skill acquisition. We’re having workshops and study groups that will let attendees not just learn, but practice things like strategies for overcoming fear of public speaking, or strategies for pumping yourself back up after rejection or experiences that fell short of your expectations. The ability to keep going, to persevere after setbacks, or to overcome fear is the single most important factor to achieve success in publishing. But authors need more than pep talks and inspirational quotes. They need to develop new skills and create personalized road maps, and that’s what we want to provide through this conference.

We picked a really small venue for our first time, so when we say space is limited, that’s not a marketing strategy, that’s the straight truth. We only have space for about 50 participants max. But we’ll announce on the website and social media as space starts to fill up.

We’re still finalizing workshop descriptions and exhibitors, so the best place to stay up to date on the conference is our website: ThePossibilitiesConference.com.

Anything else coming up we should know about?

If anyone wants a taste of what the conference will be like, I’m going to be doing a two-hour Writer to Author workshop at the Insight Shop in Vienna, Virginia, on February 5. Learn more and register here.